Nearpod is a company started in 2012 by three young entrepreneurs with a diverse skill base. Guido Kovalskys is the co-founder and CEO with a background in education including a degree from University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He also taught at Stanford's D.School, and recieved his MBA from the Haas School of Business out of UC Berkeley. Felipe Sommer covers the business side of things and has a BA in economics from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He also received an MBA from the Haas School of Business. Nearpod is a second venture for both men, who started collaborating with a start-up called SIA Interactive, a marketing business. The final partner is Emiliano Abramzon, who holds the position of Chief Marketing Officer. After graduating from University of Argentina with a BA in Economics in 1997, He holds an MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
SupportBoard members come from a wide range of back grounds, but all have a background as venture capital investors.
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Investors |
Key Business Partnerships |
Nearpod was bootstrapped for a year by the three entrepreneurs who started the business before it convinced New Schools Venture Fund, a non-profit venture philanthropy company to invest 1.5 million dollars. Since then it has landed two major venture investments since its inception in 2012. A Series A Round of investing in April 2015 totaled 5.6 Million dollars. This round was lead by Reach Capital and Rothenburg Ventures and its goal was to allow Nearpod the time to make its Freemium model of existence to work. A Series B Round of investing in March 2017, again lead by Insight Venture Partners Reach Capital, totaled an additional 21 million dollars to expand the digital learning marketplace and develop a VR product that enhances its present slideshow based product. This brings the total investments from the start to over 31 million dollars. Check out this article from Edsurge for more details.
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Nearpod has created key business partnerships with two companies that will allow it to expand its control over the very lucrative digital learning marketplace. First, it has recently partnered with Microsoft and now Nearpod users have access to Microsoft Office Sway, "a “story telling” or presentation application for quickly creating interactive, multi-media lessons. " What makes this unusual is that Microsoft rarely gives its proprietary software away. This all changed when it decided to allow Sway to live inside the Nearpod platform. Sway enriches the Nearpod experience by enhancing a users experience through rich text and media and video and animation. A second key partnership with Common Sense Education (CSE), helps keep Nearpod focused on the needs of individual users. CSE is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping families and schools thrive with media and technology. They do this by providng an unbiased advice through ratings, and reviews for digital tools, as well as a "Digital Citizenship Curriculm" to help educators harness technology and make it empower students.
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Nearpod Pionears |
What do they do? |
PioNears are a group of teachers that have committed to the Nearpod culture by applying to be certified Nearpod experts. By cultivating a relationship with these early adopters of the product, Nearpod has secured an organic social network for sharing updates. These hard-working sharers of knowledge get the prestige of a position, while Nearpod gets the benefit of a base of committed supporters that wave the Nearpod flag at every turn.
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